published_or_final_version / Law / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This study seeks to ascertain whether Chinese soft power can shape or sway the sense of belonging and identity of Uighurs within the Chinese state. The methodology used for this study will involve surveys and interviews, employing the two primary quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings from this study suggest that Chinese soft power, in the form of education in a controlled environment, does have this ability to sway Uighur to identify with the Chinese state. However, gauging the views of the wider educated Uighur community, indicates that the effectiveness of Chinese soft power is constrained by multiple social, political and economic issues. Based on the analysis of these findings, there appears to be three potential solutions: (i) create a multi-ethnic culture, (ii) incorporate civic nationalism as a component of PRC citizenship and (iii) to reformulate soft power into the form of shared goals that would require cooperation between Uighur and Hans to accomplish.

La présente thèse s’intéresse à la diversité des pouvoirs locaux en Chine qui se trouvent pris entre une tendance centralisatrice traditionnelle et une évolution autonomiste innovatrice. Les autorités centrales exercent en Chine encore l’essentiel des pouvoirs de l’État et se superposent de manière puissante aux pouvoirs locaux. Toutefois, même si c’est sous le contrôle des autorités centrales, les pouvoirs locaux ont acquis désormais des compétences dans de multiples domaines. Ils représentent ainsi de nos jours de réels centres du pouvoir que le personnel politique convoite lors des compétitions politiques. Mais contrairement à la France, les pouvoirs locaux se présentent en Chine dans un contexte de régime communiste. Cependant, comme en France, les politiques de décentralisation et de déconcentration constituent un défi pour le développement politique de l’État. À cet égard, l’échelon local a changé de statut : il a vocation à devenir une échelle décisive de gouvernement des sociétés. Cette thèse s’adresse aux juristes français et a pour ambition de leur expliquer la Chine décentralisée ainsi que l’évolution juridique et politique qui a mené à la situation actuelle. Notamment depuis une trentaine d’années, les pouvoirs locaux prennent de plus en plus de place dans la vie politique, administrative et juridique de la Chine. La thèse présente le cadre essentiellement constitutionnel de la décentralisation à la chinoise, et expose également la dimension pratique de son fonctionnement. À ce titre sont vus les changements de statut des échelons autonomes, leurs capacités juridiques et politiques et le degré de leur autonomie, tant du point de vue de la décentralisation que de la déconcentration. Le régime local se présente en Chine de manière extrêmement diversifié, à la fois dans une dimension chronologique et diachronique. / This thesis focuses on the diversity of local authorities in China, who are found between traditional centralizing tendency and autonomist innovative evolution. The central authorities in China still carry most of the powers of the state and overlap powerfully to local authorities. However, even if they are under the control of central authorities, local authorities have now acquired competences in multiple areas, such as economy, social sector, urban planning, culture, environment and sport. Local authorities thus represent today real centers of power that covets politicians during political events. But unlike in France, local authorities are presented in China in the context of the communist regime. However, as in France, the decentralization and deconcentration policy represents a challenge for public policy development. In this regard, the local level has changed status: it aims to become a decisive level of government corporations. This thesis is for French legal professionals and aims to explain the decentralized China also the legal and political developments which led to the current situation. Especially since the latest thirty years, that local authorities become having more and more space in the political, administrative and legal life of China. The thesis not only presents essentially the constitutional framework of decentralization in China, but also exposes the practical dimension of its operation. As are seen changes in the status of autonomous levels, their legal and political capacity and the degree of autonomy, both from the perspective of decentralization as deconcentration. The local regime in China has extremely diverse manner in both a chronological and diachronic dimension. This diversity of local authorities is demonstrated through both parts of the thesis

In the spring of 1924, the Baltic sea coast territory of Klaipėda, formerly a region of East Prussia became an autonomous area administrated by the Republic of Lithuania. Given the mixed nationalities of the population, during the interwar period, Germany and Lithuania both pressured citizens to prefer one or the other nationality, which contributed to gradual radicalization and growing nationalist tendencies. The key outcome was the Kaunas process at the turn of 1934/35. Under the Law for the Protection of the Republic, 87 members of the Klaipėda national-socialist organizations CSA and SOVOG were convicted of conspiracy to annex the territory to Germany. The convictions led to an economic blockade of Lithuania by Germany and a massive pro-German propaganda campaign. The United Kingdom tried to settle the situation by increasing its trade activity with Lithuania, accompanied by diplomatic pressure on Lithuania to ease its stance against Germany. After Lithuania agreed to grant amnesties to those convicted of conspiracy, in 1936/37, German-Lithuanian economic relations were restored. However, in the late 1930s, the Republic of Lithuania became an easily blackmailed and diplomatically isolated state, forced to grant numerous concessions to its German minority population. The Lithuanian government...